


Night Watch

by randi2204



Category: Robotech, Robotech The New Generation
Genre: Gen, Mutually Unrequited, POV First Person, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:53:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4931263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things that are hard to see and easy to dismiss... and some things that are neither.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Watch

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Robotech belongs to Harmony Gold; original animation to Tatsunoko Productions.

Rand always takes the middle watch.  Every night, without fail, he volunteers for it, and when whoever takes the first one feels sleepy, he’s always awake and ready to take over.

 

He says it’s because he’s a Forager, used to waking up in the middle of the night, used to being alert almost at once, used to interrupted sleep.  And he says it in that easy, confident tone that no one really wants to disbelieve.  So no one says anything about it.

 

And if there’s a look in his eyes that speaks of pain, of something haunting him, no one says anything about that, either.  Everyone has scars, and the right to bear them in private.

 

So Rand sits lonely watches through the dead of night, making sure the team doesn’t get surprised by Invid patrols.  Sometimes he wakes up Lancer or Lunk to relieve him.  Sometimes, he’s still watching when the sun paints the sky rose and gold.

 

But he never wakes Scott to take his place.  When he does crawl into his sleeping bag, it’s always as far from Scott as he can get.

 

He only acts like that at night, though.  During the day, he is his normal self, intense and impulsive… as long as the skies are clear.

 

If the Invid start blurring the horizon, dropping down out of the clouds, he changes again, still intense, but single-minded, focused first and foremost not on his own safety, but Scott’s.

 

And when Scott gets out of those tight spots he seems to get into with such regularity, he always lights into Rand, upbraiding him about his carelessness, with frequent forays into the many deaths soldiers can die.  Rand bears it with no more than a twitch of his lips… but his eyes speak volumes.

 

So, yeah, while it may seem to the others that we’re just one step away from either kissing or killing each other, that’s all it is, just seeming.  Rand teases me, I snarl at him and he’s usually got some kind of comeback for whatever I say.

 

But when the fight is on and Scott’s in the air, no matter where we are, I always hear Rand whispering encouragement in a low, desperate tone that shocks me.

 

At night, I lay cold and lonely and awake in my sleeping bag, and if I’m close enough, I can hear the way he whispers Scott’s name, and I know that I’ll never be first in his heart.

 

Lonely soldier boy, indeed.

 

***

September 5, 2005

**Author's Note:**

>  **Notes:** This was born from watching _Genesis Climber Mospeada_ for the first time, and seeing that it was a bit more slashy than Robotech. I couldn't resist Ray (Rand) and his hero-worship for Stig (Scott), nor could I resist doing what I normally do and reading more into it. I changed the names because the action is the same, only some of the words have changed, and I love Robotech so much.


End file.
